Batman: No Man’s Land

I’ve included all of the No Man’s Land issues except for the Robin tie-ins. I felt that those issues did not add much to the overall story, and in some places caused more continuity headaches than they were worth. So, we have Legends of the Dark Knight (LOTDK), Shadow of the Bat (SOTB), Batman, Detective Comics, Batman Chronicles, Azrael: Agent of the Bat, Nightwing, and Catwoman. Specials include No Man’s Land #0-1, Young Justice in NML, Batman: Harley Quinn. There are also two optional issues of JLA that can be included. I’m not including any Batman comics that take place during NML, but are part of larger DC events and don’t reference NML itself (i.e. the Batman JLApe Annual and Day of Judgement tie-in).

I also used this site as a resource: http://batman-superman.tripod.com/pob/nmlguide1.htm It summarizes all of NML (with spoilers). I don’t completely agree with it, but it’s a good starting reference. It also explains some of my reasoning about putting certain issues in certain places.

(NML #0 could be a tough one, since it does spoil some of the mysteries of the first half of NML. But that goes to personal preference. If you’ve read it all before, there’s no reason not to put it there.)

Good break points, story wise, are LOTDK #120 and #125. I also try to group a lot of the “filler” issues that came out in the summer months together in one book. (I don’t like Larry Hama’s Batman work, and I think his issues in NML are the absolute worst. Therefore, if I can keep his involvement down to just one volume, I will. Although I think in my personal breakdown, he creeps into two…but one of those is just for a single issue. And I can’t just skip Hama’s issues, because at least one of them has a pivotal plot point to the overall NML arc.)

The early Azrael issues were a little difficult to place, because the first four are supposed to take place in a short span of time right after the bridges are blown up. However, Batman shows up in #53. Batman does not show up in NML proper until three months into the ordeal, as stated in the opening arc. So I fudged it a bit. Also, Azrael #58 is also a Day of Judgement tie-in.

The Catwoman issues are also a bit difficult, because they try to tie the beginning of the arc in with issues that came out in June 1999, and the end of the arc with issues that came out in November, but try to say the story only took three days, or some nonsense like that (That’s my problem when writers and editors try to give specific timeframes — they want to say a large batch of issues takes place over a large span of time, but most of the stories contained within only cover a few days). Catwoman #75 shares scenes with Azrael #59 and SOTB #93, so preference goes to those.